


Never Ending Pasta Bowl (I'll have the ravioli, please)

by VeriLee



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, I'll tag more characters as they show up but these one-shots are going to focus on ravioli, If that becomes the case then I will update these tags and the archive warning tag to reflect that, It's zombies so character death or graphic violence could show up if that's what my muse gives me, at this moment those tags do not apply
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 14:50:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14875820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeriLee/pseuds/VeriLee
Summary: So, I decided to post my Ravioli one-shots and drabbles here.Sometimes sweet, sometimes silly, sometimes sappy. (Okay, a lot of times sappy, if we're being honest.) But never a shortage of Ravioli. I'll add new ones whenever the inspiration strikes.





	1. Candy Corn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That time when I thought I was going to write an iZombie drabble every day of October from a month long prompt list, but only ended up ever writing the one. Oops.
> 
> This takes place early season 2.

* * *

 

“Candy Corn?”

As Liv walked through the morgue entrance, Ravi turned from the cadaver he was working on to gesture at an array of candy dishes lined along a countertop.

“Shit.” Liv made a face as if she’d smelled something unpleasant. “That’s right. It’s October already.”

“And what is wrong with October?” Ravi peeled off his gloves and dropped them in the medical waste bin before he began to count off on his fingers. “You’ve got Halloween, cinnamon apple cider in the breakroom, Count Chocula cereal, and I think we all know how flattering sweater weather is to me,” he finished with a teasing grin.

Liv offered a small smile at Ravi’s enthusiasm, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She sighed as she moved to hang her jacket on the coat rack before turning back to face her friend. _One of her only friends,_ she thought.

“It’s just difficult. Zombie movie marathons on tv, zombie costumes and Halloween decorations everywhere?”

“You always _want_ me to watch zombie movies with you!” Ravi protested, “And you’ve been trying to get me that _Teen Zombie_ show, as well.”

“ _Zombie High_ ,” Liv clarified. She busied herself with straightening up an already tidy pen cup to avoid meeting his eyes. “That’s different, though. Watching movies with you. But for Halloween monsters and ghouls are going to be plastered everywhere, and it’s just a constant reminder that I’m one of them. And that my friends and family want nothing to do with me.”

It was silent in the morgue for a moment. Ravi approached Liv and put his hands on her shoulders, turning her towards him. He ducked his head slightly to meet her gaze, imploring her not to look away.

“You are _not_ a monster,” he said forcefully, “I know I can’t say anything that will instantly fix things with your family, or Major and Peyton, and I’m sure they will come around in time. But regardless, you are not a monster, you are Liv.”

Liv smiled again, still a little smile, but more genuine this time. _You are Liv_. Ravi’s words were plain and to the point and just what she needed to hear. And most of all, he meant them. He saw _her_.

“Now,” Ravi nudged Liv towards the candy dishes again, “You really should have some candy corn. I stopped at that new candy shop, _Sweet Nothings_. They make their candy corn in-house and have some unique flavors. These are for you,” he pointed at the dish on the end, filled with bright orange and red candy corns with a blue tip.

Liv picked one up but didn’t look too excited. “Thanks, Ravi, but you know I can’t taste much unless-”

“Unless it’s incredibly spicy, I know.” Ravi’s grin widened. “Those are called ‘ _flamethrowers_.’ They’re white chocolate, mango, and habanero flavored. When I saw them, I instantly thought of you.”

Liv considered the candy corn in her palm, and then impulsively hugged Ravi in thanks. _It’s just a stupid candy_ , _stop being mushy,_ she told herself. But maybe the last brain she ate was a bit generous with the touchy-feely.

 


	2. Power Couples

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ravi and Liv plan a couples cosplay. Don’t look too closely, lol. This is a totally self-indulgent Ravioli meets Reylo iZombie drabble that probably is only of interest to the approximately twelve people who ship both, lol.

* * *

 

The Emerald City Comic-Con is going to be sparse this year. What with the whole of Seattle being walled in and travel-restricted and all.

And no, Chase Graves does _not_ think bringing in a variety of stars and authors for entertainment’s sake is a good reason to issue special travel permits. He claims it’s “nonessential.” _The buzzkill._

The cast, writers, and director of _Zombie_ _High_ will represent a large chunk of the guest list. Filming was underway when the outbreak occurred and much of the cast and crew is now comprised of _actual_ zombies, ironically. (On the upside, ratings have never been higher. The rest of the country is just eating it up.)

There’s also a handful of other guests - actors, authors, artists - some retired, who made their home in the Seattle area and had thus become trapped here. No one from the outside though.

And of course, local artists, crafters, cosplayers, and the like will be there. Ravi says that aspect of community is half the reason for going, regardless of what panels will take place and who is there to sign autographs.

He still wants to go, of course. He never misses a con if he can help it. And Liv is interested in going along. She even plans to dress up. Ravi isn’t entirely sure he’s on board with her idea though.

“Did you freeze any bits of leftover brain from that guy…The Fog? Don a costume and get that zombie vigilante vibe going again.” Ravi smirks over his clipboard. “What did you call yourself? The Nightmare Before Christmas?”

Liv cringes at the memory. She’d gone a bit _Mystery Men_ on that brain to her embarrassment (and Ravi’s amusement). She might bury her face in her palms if she weren’t wrist deep in a corpse’s chest cavity. 

“That was just a bad pun about the circumstances, _not_ my name. And yet it was still better than anything you came up with - Snow Woman? _Ol’ Scratchy?_ Besides, even if it hadn’t been ridiculous enough then, zombie vigilante - zombie _anything_ \- is hardly interesting around here these days.”

“But, Liv…I don’t know about this.” Ravi’s eyes dart over to the costumes that she had proudly held up when she walked into the morgue that morning, now draped across the couch in his office. 

“It’ll be really cute…everyone will love us.”

“If you really want to go as a Star Wars couple, let’s go with _my_ suggestion.”

 “You just want to work in some sort of ridiculous _Darth Ravi-Darth Revan_ pun.” Liv groans audibly as she places an organ on the scale. “11.2 ounces, no visual abnormalities.”

“Not true.” Ravi protests, as he writes down the weight of the heart. “Revan’s story was always one of my favorites…nothing to do with the similarity to my own name.” He frowns down at the clipboard. “That’s a little heavy, though…we’ll want to take a closer look. Anyway, all I’m saying is, if you want to go with the whole Dark and Light couple thing, we can dress as Revan and Bastila.”

“That’s another thing. You like their story, why not Reylo?”

Ravi sighs. He’d tried to get Liv to watch Star Wars for ages, keeping up movie night when they were bored with repetitive zombie flicks. ( _How she’d grown up without ever seeing any of the movies, he couldn’t fathom. It was an American right of passage, wasn’t it?_ ) But she’d always insisted “sci-fi just wasn’t for her.”

Until she ate the brain of a woman who had been obsessed with Luke Skywalker and she’d suddenly been overcome with the urge to binge watch all the movies. ‘Movie night’ had evolved into ‘Movie Fortnight’ at Ravi and Major’s place. They’d watched all the saga movies (both the latest special edition Blu-rays and the old VHS copies Ravi had thankfully kept from his childhood), Rogue One, and most of the Clone Wars and Rebels cartoons. Liv had poured over Wookieepedia and devoured several of Ravi’s old Extended Universe paperbacks.

The effects of the brain had eventually faded when she ate someone new, but one fixation hasn’t gone away.

Reylo.

It isn’t that Ravi _hates_ the concept or anything. He is just…more old school. The original trilogy holds first place in his heart, followed by the EU novels and comics that had consumed his youth. The sequels are better than the prequels for the most part, but still….it just isn’t quite the same as what he’d loved growing up.

He actually likes the character of Kylo Ren well enough ( _Ben Solo_ , Liv insists). He wouldn’t mind dressing up as him…it’d be pretty cool, fact.

But…

He glances towards the costumes again. The Kylo costume Liv picked up was the largest in the youth section of the costume shop. It’s for her. She wants him to dress up as Rey.

He ignores her question and moves on to his next argument.

“ _I’m_ 6′ 3″. If you insist on this, I should at least get to be Kylo Ren.” 

“But Rey is like a ray of sunshine, and your name _means_ Sun and you’re my own personal sunshine,” Liv teases with a grin.

Ravi groans. Suddenly he has a bit more sympathy for Clive and Liv always putting up with his puns and cheesy jokes.

 


	3. Warm Bodies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tried my hand at the "Exactly 100 Words" thing. 
> 
> Early Season 1.

* * *

 

“I’m not sure there’s much to learn from _Warm Bodies_.” Liv shakes a healthy amount of fiery Cajun seasoning onto her popcorn.

“Did we really learn anything from _28 Days Later?_ ” Ravi’s enjoying his “copious amounts of butter will do” popcorn, the bastard. “These zombies do display the deterioration from humanesque to monstrous state, so there’s that.”

“It’s still Romeo and Juliet, undead edition.” Liv sighs. “If _I_ fall in love with a human, he can’t save me. I’ll just end up damning him.”

Even as she speaks, she realizes she’s wrong. In some ways, Ravi has already saved her.

 


	4. things you said after it was over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody prompted me with this, but I was reading over a prompt list and thinking about the fact that if anyone asked for this prompt (things you said after it was over) and expected angst, they’d be in for disappointment because I’d make it fluff. And then I felt like writing it.
> 
> (I wrote this before the Season 4 finale, which is why it doesn't match up with that actually went down)

* * *

 

In retrospect, the idea that a wall could have contained the zombies of the world should have been laughable from the start. Hadn’t anyone ever watched a zombie movie? The fact that Seattle remained closed off, and still functional, for as long as it did is actually pretty impressive.

It’s still not clear what came first – the crusade of Angus’s zombie church or the uprising within the ranks of Fillmore Graves itself – or if the ensuing chaos could have been slowed if just one group or the other had been restrained. Were they even completely separate factions by the time the walls were torn down?

Either way, in less than a year the population of the US is cut nearly in half, and the population of the world overall is down by over a quarter. There are too many dead, zombie and human alike, and not enough mourners left behind. It could have been worse. That fact is of little comfort now that Ravi and Liv are on the other side. But it is _some_ comfort. They’ve made it through the long night and are side by side, as they were in the beginning.

It was only luck – or maybe fate – that led Ravi and Liv to Isobel only a month or two before The Outbreak (the _true_ outbreak; the Aleutian Flu Vaccine Incident was an experiment in a Petri dish compared to what was to come). And it was Ravi’s skill (and a hefty government grant) that lead to him figuring out a way to synthesize the antigen he discovered in Isobel’s brain in such a short amount of time. It went to market, barely tested, but what choice did the world have?

Isobel wanted to know that her life had mattered. She only helped save the world. Ravi never got those helicopters he’d joked about, but if he ever did, he would emblazon her name, not his own, on the side.

Liv is one of the last to take the cure. The near indestructibility that came along with being a zombie had been an asset in the dangerous days between the uprising and the new peace. Ravi had tested on himself early on (of course he did).

It’s a little nerve-wracking, the last moments before taking the cure. If Liv’s heart rate weren’t slowed by the zombie virus within her, she’s sure her heart would be pounding a mile a minute. It’s been so long, she’s almost unsure she’ll recognize herself. Who was ever the real Olivia Moore?

She thinks back to what she’d said to Ravi years ago now: 

> _“I wonder if we would've been friends if we'd met before I became a zombie.”_
> 
> _His reply couldn’t have been swifter. “Definitely. Like me for my antidotes, love me for my anecdotes.”_

But would they have had the chance to meet?

Liv’s eyes are trained on Ravi’s as she finally swallows the capsule. It works fast – so, _so_ fast. And yet, she feels like she’s reliving the lifetime between that fateful boat party and now in this handful of minutes. Ravi smiles, watching as the circles under Liv’s eyes fade, and the natural warmth returns to her skin. When she throws her arms around Ravi’s neck, presses her (blessedly warm, human) lips to his, it’s more than just a ‘thank you’ kiss. And his response is more than ‘you’re welcome.’

After a moment, Liv steps back and says what nearly every zombie-to-human recoveree does: “I’m hungry.” Of course, as a zombie, she’d always been hungry, but never full. Now she can truly taste again.

Ravi laughs. He knew it was coming. And _finally_ he’s able to ask her the most mundane of questions, and yet it means so much. “Do you want to get out of here? Go get something to eat?”

It’s the most conventional first date they could ask for – though the circumstance of how they ended up in each other’s lives is anything but – and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

 


End file.
